Well, without knowing your experience level, or exactly what you'd like to shoot, I would highly suggest watching (buying, downloading, how ever you can) Zack Arias' One Light. It really breaks down flash photography to it's basics.

Cheers Rory... Will do...
Was actually hoping to see peoples shots purely for 'inspirational' purposes... If I see an effect I particularly like I can then ask questions relating directly to what I (then) hope to achieve...

Last edited by DaveHolmes; 04-26-2011 at 07:15 PM.
Reason: pluralising

Yeah, I knew what you were going for. I don't have a ton of examples. Most of my off camera lighting is monolights. But that info is key. I've shot for 10 years, and I've never had someone summarize it so succinctly.

Yeah, I knew what you were going for. I don't have a ton of examples. Most of my off camera lighting is monolights. But that info is key. I've shot for 10 years, and I've never had someone summarize it so succinctly.

Have you tried searching on Flickr?

Cool... just watched the first 20mins on youtube and have 2 dvd downloading on BT... I'm using manual flash anyway... But the 'inverse square law' is quite confusing... Gonna have to watch that a couple times...

I keep looking on the strobist flickr page but there's a lot of model based fashiony stuff there... and it doesn't grab me much... Kinda want to create my own atmospherics in urban situations... Not sure how to describe... Erm.... LOL

Yeah, I think even Zack mentions he doesnt' fully understand inverse square. Just remember the basics and you have much more knowledge than a lot of people.

I started a thread about studio lighting and what people have, and just got a bunch of comedians giggling with links to "the sun". I would think you would have more success with a flash thread, though.

Actually, inverse square law is simple. If the surface is twice as far away, it gets one fourth the light. So, 4 feet is f/11, 8 feet is f/5.6, 16 feet drops to f/2.8. The problem arises when the photographer starts using light modifiers, (umbrellas, softboxes, etc.) as the inverse square law applies only to point light sources. As a rough rule of thumb, you can expect that twice as far equals four times the power.

Take your subject and put them about 10 feet in front of a white wall. Place a flash about 8 feet away from your subject. Shoot the scene and your subject AND background will be illuminated.

Now take that same flash and same scene and place the light directly on top of the subject.....perhaps 1 foot from their face. Even though you're light is now closer to the background (by 7 feet), the background will be much darker. The closer you get the light to your subject, the amount of light that goes behind them will diminish. Inverse Square Law. Why? I have no idea. Most people don't. You just need to know how to apply it.

It's not a rigourous application of that law when you apply it to a flash, but it's a good approximation. It's basically an assumption based on how you calculate the area of a sphere based on its radius.

If you want to learn about remote flash photography, a wonderful place to start is the Strobist blog. the danger is that if everyone starts shooting like that guy, it won't be creative anymore. But I believe learning the basic techniques from him can be very enlightening.

Anyone have any examples of strobist work outside of a studio setting they'd care to share?

I'd particularly like to see night-time-city-shot-type-stuff if anyone has any...

Well, it's the first time I've shared any of my attempts. These two were taken of my wife & I posed next to a rental car that I really liked. They're nowhere near what others do but I thought they were rather neat.

Pentax K200d with a cheap radio trigger.
2 Metz 45 CT-1 flashes with Mecamat controllers and cheap radio receivers.
Flashes on light stands in driveway and neighbours thinking I'm mad.

I believe I was shooting bounced into two white umbrellas. It was a dark night and afterwards I realized that the car was none too clean!!